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![ENCODING/DECODING
• the moment of encoding: 'the institutional practices
and organizational conditions and practices of
production' (Corner 1983, 266);
• the moment of the text: 'the... symbolic construction,
arrangement and perhaps performance... The form and
content of what is published or broadcast' (ibid., 267);
and
• the moment of decoding: 'the moment of reception
[or] consumption... by... the reader/hearer/viewer'
which is regarded by most theorists as 'closer to a form
of "construction"' than to 'the passivity... suggested by
the term "reception"'](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/examlessons3audiencess-160311132433/75/Exam-lessons-3-audiences-Section-A-A2-Media-Exam-22-2048.jpg)
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Similar to Exam lessons 3 (audiences) Section A A2 Media Exam
Exam lessons 3 (audiences) Section A A2 Media Exam
- 1. A2 G325: Critical Perspectives inMedia Theoretical Evaluation Of Production 1b) Audiences
- 2. Question 1b • Thisquestion asks you to write about one of your media productions – in this case your SOAP OPERA TRAILER and ancillary tasks can also be referenced. • You will be asked to write about the production by applying ONE media concept
- 3. AUDIENCE What should bedone in terms of your coursework is three things: 1. You must detail the target audience for your product. 2. Detail what the audience might identify with in your product 3. What meanings/uses they might make from consuming/interacting with the product.
- 4. TARGET AUDIENCE • Foryour production you had to create a ‘Target audience profile’ – refer to this along with concepts and relevant theory
- 5. • Audiences canbe defined by their TARGET AUDIENCE
- 6. • Primary andSecondary Audience • Fanatics / Ironics / Non-commited / Dismissives • The traditional segmentation model (ABC) • (Young & Rubicam’s 4Cs model) cross cultural consumer characterization model TARGET AUDIENCE
- 7.
- 8. (Young & Rubicam’s4Cs model) cross cultural consumer characterization model
- 9. Young & Rubicam4 Cs model Cross-Cultural Consumer Characterisation model A more useful audience segmentation model than the traditional ABC1 categorization. It acknowledges the global nature of media audiences Divides audiences into 7 types of consumer 4 main categories are (MARS) MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS The other categories to be added to this are (ERS) EXPLORER RESIGNED STRUGGLER It takes the following as consumer motivations: SECURITY, CONTROL, STATUS, INDIVIDUALITY, FREEDOM, SURVIVAL and ESCAPE Clear links with Maslow
- 10. AUDIENCE • Over thecourse of the past century or so, media analysts have developed several “effects models”, which are explanations of how humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their behaviour. • Some people see media audiences as being easily manipulated masses of people There have also been fears that the contents of media texts can make audiences behave in different ways. On the other hand there have been other critics who have seen the media as having much less influence and working in more subtle ways.
- 11. AUDIENCE THEORY • Audiencetheory falls into two camps EFFECTS THEORY/MODELS PASSIVE ACTIVE RECEPTION THEORY Emphasizes the audiences reception or interpretation in making meaning from media text. What the media does to us What we do with the media
- 12. THE EFFECTS MODEL •The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience • It is normally considered that this effect is negative • Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence • The power lies with the message of the text
- 13. Hypodermic Needle ModelUses & Gratifications Model Audiences are passive Easily led, influenced & manipulated Gullible, sheep-like fashion-followers Media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviour of audiences Sometimes called ‘magic bullet’ theory Linked to propaganda & advertising Behaviourist models of human behaviour Audiences are active in choosing media for their own ‘gratifications’ (pleasure) Links to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Developed by Blumler & Katz PASSIVE ACTIVE This approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content. RECEPTION THEORY
- 14. o Dating fromthe 1920s and being one of the most simple theory's to understand the hypodermic needle theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced o But remember that this theory was developed in an age when the mass media were still fairly new - radio and cinema were less than two decades old. Governments had just discovered the power of advertising to communicate a message, and produced propaganda to try and sway people to their way of thinking. o So this theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media- makers. It assumes that the audience are passive and heterogenous. It is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves. The Hypodermic Needle Theory
- 15. o The FrankfurtSchool, a group of German Marxists, who in the 1930s witnessed first hand how Hitler used propaganda to influence a nation. o The Bobo Doll experiment This is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour. o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU Evidence for the Hypodermic Needle Theory
- 16. MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OFNEEDS You will pick or be attracted to media that satisfies these needs
- 17. o According touses and gratification theory, we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. o In this model the individual has the power and they are able to select the media texts that best suits their needs and their attempts to satisfy those needs. The psychological basis for this model is the Hierarchy of Needs identified by Maslow. o The theory suggests that we as an audience may use the media for the four following purposes: o Diversion – Escaping from everyday problems and routine. o Personal Relationships – Using the media for emotional and other interaction (substituting soap operas for family life. o Personal Identity – Finding yourself reflected in the media, learning behaviour and values. o Surveillance – Information which could be useful for living (weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains) Uses and Gratification Theory In contrast to the concern of the 'media effects' tradition with 'what media do to people' (which assumes a homogeneous mass audience and a 'hypodermic' view of media), U & G can be seen as part of a broader trend amongst media researchers which is more concerned with 'what people do with media', allowing for a variety of responses and interpretations*
- 18. U & GBREAKDOWN • Information/Surveillance • finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world • seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices • satisfying curiosity and general interest • learning; self-education • gaining a sense of security through knowledge • Personal Identity • finding reinforcement for personal values • finding models of behaviour • identifying with valued other (in the media) • gaining insight into one's self • Integration and Social Interaction/ Personal Relationships • gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy • identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging • finding a basis for conversation and social interaction • having a substitute for real-life companionship • helping to carry out social roles • enabling one to connect with family, friends and society • Entertainment / Diversion • escaping, or being diverted, from problems • relaxing • getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment • filling time • emotional release • sexual arousal
- 19. U&G applied toSoap Operas • Watching TV Soap Operas A major focus for research into why and how people watch TV has been the genre of soap opera. Adopting a U & G perspective, Richard Kilborn (1992: 75-84) offers the following common reasons for watching soaps: • regular part of domestic routine and entertaining reward for work • Launch pad for social and personal interaction • fulfilling individual needs: a way of choosing to be alone or of enduring enforced loneliness • identification and involvement with characters (perhaps cathartic) • escapist fantasy (American supersoaps more fantastical) • focus of debate on topical issues • a kind of critical game involving knowledge of the rules and conventions of the genre
- 20. RECEPTION THEORY • Giventhat the Effects model and the Uses and Gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970s • This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences
- 21. RECEPTION THEORY • Thetheory suggests that: • When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience • In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say • In some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message
- 22. ENCODING/DECODING • the momentof encoding: 'the institutional practices and organizational conditions and practices of production' (Corner 1983, 266); • the moment of the text: 'the... symbolic construction, arrangement and perhaps performance... The form and content of what is published or broadcast' (ibid., 267); and • the moment of decoding: 'the moment of reception [or] consumption... by... the reader/hearer/viewer' which is regarded by most theorists as 'closer to a form of "construction"' than to 'the passivity... suggested by the term "reception"'
- 23. ENCODING/DECODING • Stuart Hallstressed the role of social positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups. Hall suggested three hypothetical interpretative codes or positions for the reader of a text • Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text: 1. Dominant or preferred 2. Negotiated 3. Oppositional
- 24. ENCODING/DECODING 1. Dominant • dominant(or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent'; • Where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it • E.g. Watching a political speech and agreeing with it
- 25. ENCODING/DECODING 2. Negotiated • negotiatedreading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions; • Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views • E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested
- 26. ENCODING/DECODING 3. Oppositional • oppositional('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference • Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons • E.g. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition
- 27. QUOTES • Clarke (2007)states that in media industries it is important to carry out ‘regular audience research’ using methods such as rating collection, questionnaires, surveys and screen tests. By doing this you are able to find the most recent interests of an audience and develop a film that they will enjoy and that will engage them.
- 28. QUOTES • John Hartley’saudience theory talked about the idea that media institutions need to communicate with audiences more to gain the ability to create a film that can strongly target an audience, this being shown through quotes John Hartley has said such as: • ‘The media institutions must know their audiences if they are able to effectively target them.’ • ‘Invisible fictions of the audience which allow the institutions to get a sense of who they must enter into relations with.’ • ‘Institutions are obliged not only to speak about an audience, but – crucially for them – to talk to one as well; they need not only to represent audiences but to enter into relations with them.’ • These quotes basically suggest the idea that interactions with audiences are strongly required to create a strong film that has the ability to effectively target an audience.
- 29. • Ien Angdetailed that media producers have an imaginary entity in mind before the construction of a media product. "Audiences only exist as an imaginary entity, an abstraction, constructed from the vantage point of institution, in the interest of the institution.” • Ien Ang states that 'audience- hood is becoming an even more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences' There is a lot more to audience – it’s not just about their demographics such as gender, age and social class but rather it’s about the psychographics such as the audiences hobbies, habits and interests. Audience is not a big lump of the same people – it’s made up of different individuals
- 30. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988) • “…the generic conventions of particular media forms establish a framework within which audience interpretation occurs. For the continuous serial or soap opera, the meanings negotiated between text and reader are not bounded by any single episode, and hence, second, the soap opera may offer considerable opportunity for an interpretative role for the long-term reader/viewer.”
- 31. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988) • The way in which an audience member comes to an interpretation of meaning “…involves their understanding of the genre, their motivation for viewing and their sociogonitive resources for making sense of character and narrative.”
- 32. SOCIAL COGNITION • anindividual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors.
- 33. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988) • “Soap opera, peculiar among television drama genres, has no heroes but a multiplicity of equivalently important characters. Hence it invites not an exclusive or passive identification with a central figure but rather an active and participatory involvement based on ‘parasocial interaction’ (Horton and Wohl, 1956) with a community of characters.”
- 34. PARASOCIAL INTERACTION • asoriginally hypothesized by Horton and Wohl (1956), offers an explanation of the ways in which audience members develop their one-sided relationships with the media being consumed. PSI is described as an illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show host, celebrities, characters) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them, and feel as though a mediated other is talking directly to them (Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985). PSI can be developed to the point where media audiences begin to view the mediated others as “real friends” (Stern, Russell, & Russell, 2007).
- 35. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988) • “Cultivation research (Gerber et al, 1986) examines the hypothesis that exposure to television is positively correlated with endorsement of beliefs which are more representation of the world .”
- 36. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Women and Soap Opera: A Cultural Feminist Perspective – Dannielle Blumenthal (1997) • “In a very real sense, then, the better one “knows” a soap opera, the greater reason one has for wanting to watch… Conversely, the less involved one is in a given soap opera’s textual network, the more that soap opera appears to be merely a series of plot lines that unfold so slowly that virtually “nothing happens” in any given episode (Allen 1987:86).”
- 37. SOAP OPERA STUDIES •Women and Soap Opera: A Cultural Feminist Perspective – Dannielle Blumenthal (1997) • “Sonia Livingstone has also found that audience members ascribe different meanings to the same soap narrative depending on their feelings about the characters (1990:72)”